


Red

by haganenoheichou



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Dark!Harry, Kind!Voldemort, M/M, Nothing too explicit, Tomarry Secret Santa 2016, m/m - Freeform, tomarry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8978875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/haganenoheichou
Summary: Tom takes Harry away from the Dursleys and offers him a chance at a new life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tomarry Secret Santa 2016 event! For my giftee, @bigjellymonster. I hope you enjoy it and have some very happy holidays.

Red. Harry’s summers were not green or blue like most people’s. Harry’s summers were red. Red with anger and frustration. Red with the blood from his knuckles and fingertips, his slip lips and scuffed knees.

Sometimes, they were blue and purple too.

Sometimes yellow.

But this summer, this summer was different. The last summer before he would leave his aunt and uncle behind, together with the un-summery colors they brought into his life.

His sixteenth summer. 

This summer was redder and bluer and yellower than the ones before. He supposed it had to do with the fact that he had grown quite a bit. Still short, but he had become stocky after Quidditch and all the things that had happened to him in the previous years – things that had involved running and fighting for his life. Those things had seasoned him, made him if not a man, then the beginnings of one.

The idea didn’t seem to sit well with his aunt and uncle. Especially his uncle, the man who hated seeing his nephew become capable of rebuttal. But not quite. Not quite yet, uncle, Harry thought, even as the blows landed mercilessly, even as the hot pan seared the skin on his arm.

He couldn’t use his real strength with his family. Not until he was seventeen.

He blamed many people for this. He blamed Dumbledore, most of all, since had had mercilessly deposited Harry into the so-called care of his relatives without even checking in to see what was happening to their charge. He blamed Sirius for not showing up and then dying on him in the Department of Mysteries. He blamed Ron and Hermione for being powerless. He blamed himself for keeping his mouth shut even when it got worse.

More and more, his resentment grew, threatening to spill over into a cacophony of anger. 

That was when he met Tom.

Of course, he knew who Tom was. From the moment their eyes met across the deserted playground, when Harry had stumbled onto the sand, tired and nursing yet another bruise on his cheekbone, he knew who Tom was.

Strangely enough, he did not blame Tom.

Tom was also… different. Different to the man Harry had seen on the back of another man’s head, different to the projection that had erupted from the diary in his second year, and different to the maniac who had been reborn from Harry’s blood.

He was just… Tom.

They sat together in silence for a long time before Tom slipped his hand into his pocket. Harry tensed up, prepared to run, to fight, but then remembered that he didn’t even have his wand. No. That had been snapped in half by his uncle earlier this very red summer.

So, he just sat there, with mild curiosity, watching as Tom pulled his hand out of his pocket and offered him a ring.

“Come with me,” he said finally, his voice a far cry from the cruel, high sound it had been before. It was gentle, halfway between a whisper and a mutter, but warm, so warm, so different, so… human. “Become mine. I will make sure no harm comes to you anymore.”

Harry’s eyes scanned Tom’s newly human, handsome face for a sign of deceit. He found none. Tom was the only person in Harry’s life who had always treated him with maturity.

As opposed to his so-called mentors at Hogwarts. Even in the Burrow, Harry had always been a child.

He'd never even gotten a chance to be a child if he were completely honest with himself.

“And what would you want with someone like me?” He asked, his voice raspy from having screamed all through his beating. He nearly flinched when he felt Tom’s fingers on his abused cheek. Instinctively, he leaned into the intimate gesture – so different from the punches and the familial hugs he’d received before from the Dursleys and the Weasleys.

“You are as strong as I am,” Tom said by ways of an explanation, his eyes studying Harry’s face for discomfort.

“I am not,” Harry said, letting his eyelids obscure his view for a moment. “You see how I am.”

“This is not you, Harry.”

His name on Tom’s tongue was a dancing, teasing melody. It was a promise. Harry didn’t do well with promises.

“You have so much potential,” Tom said quietly. “All you need is someone to help you explore yourself. Truly explore who you really are.”

“And I suppose you are that someone?” Harry asked. Tom’s breathless chuckle was a comfort.

“I have told you before, Harry. There is no good or evil. Only greatness,” he replied, steadily. Harry’s eyes opened to meet his burgundy red gaze. “And those who are too weak to seek it.”

Harry felt almost hypnotized. But somehow, somehow this was more real than anything he had experienced before.

“And the ring?” Harry asked, eyeing the object. It was a pretty thing – silver with some sort of stone set into it.

“A Portkey… and a special thing, for myself,” Tom said. “Like you.”

“You would have me wear it?”

“Yes,” Tom said. “As a sign of alliance and trust.”

“Can there really be trust between us?” Harry asked. Tom smiled at him humorlessly.

“There is only one way to find out,” he replied. “Put it on and stand by my side.”

The cool metal slipped around Harry’s finger effortlessly, as if the ring had been made to fit him. His world turned on its axis rapidly, and a split-second later, he found himself kneeling on the floor of a grand hall. Tom’s arms were secure around him, and he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet by the other man.

“Welcome, Harry, to Slytherin Manor,” Tom said, his words taking on a sibilant quality that sent shivers down Harry’s spine. “Welcome to your new home.”

* * *

It looked as though none in Lord Voldemort’s circle were particularly surprised to see Harry standing next to their Master. Cloaked in a rich wool of black and green, Harry felt overdressed and uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the people he had once fought against. However, all judgment seemed to seep out of the hall as soon as Tom nodded, and his followed collapsed, falling to their knees like dominos in a sign of deference to their Lord. Both of their Lords.

They sat at a long table, discussing strategy. Tom's fingers absently played with the ring on Harry’s, drawing the attention of the Death Eaters. Harry fought the urge to pull away, instead embracing it. He looked up to see Severus Snape’s eyes beetle-black eyes studying him thoroughly from a distance. The man’s face was unreadable, yet it was somewhat less hostile than usual. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on Harry’s part.

“And what of… Lord Potter, sir?” Lucius Malfoy chanced. “What part will he play?”

Harry’s eyes turned to Voldemort just as the man’s fingers caught his chin and turned his face towards their owner. Red eyes burnt with something, something so _potent_ , as they studied his face, just inches from his own. Harry felt his cheeks heat up.

“The most important, Lucius,” Tom said finally, his voice barely above a whisper; yet, the entire hall heard him. “All of you in this room know of the significant role Harry Potter will play in the creation of a new world.”

Harry’s eyes widened minutely, but instead of mistrust and panic, there was a strange feeling of surrender that washed over him. He was so, so tired of being constantly on the run, in control, trying to find his path in life without getting killed, doing the right thing, not being selfish…

Merlin, Tom let him be selfish. Tom took over responsibility. It was okay with Tom.

“Harry Potter will be second only to me,” Voldemort continued, pulling away from Harry and leaving him with a peculiar feeling of loss in his bones. The Dark Lord turned to face the room.

“He will become my right hand, my advisor on the matters of humanity, as he seems to be quite… sensitive.”

There was a titter that scattered around the room before being snuffed out with one lazy life of Voldemort’s hand.

“He will be my Consort, won’t you Harry? He already holds part of my soul. It is only fitting for him to hold my heart and body as well.”

Harry looked down at his ring shyly. The ring that held another part of Voldemort’s soul. He had read so many things since coming to the Manor, about the burdensome nature of such things when they were worn by the wrong people. But to him, the ring felt weightless, comforting, in a strange, companionate way. Almost as if it spoke to him.

“I will be your Consort,” he replied quietly, startling the audience. Tom’s face showed no emotion, but the warmth inside of Harry spread, setting him alight. “On one condition.”

There was a tense pause. The Dark Lord never took well to conditions.

“Which is?”

“I want to take revenge on my family myself,” Harry said firmly, looking up at the elder man whose eyes shone with pride. “I want to show them what I am worth.”

“The world, Harry,” Voldemort said, squeezing Harry’s hand. “The world and more.”

Tom’s red gaze spurred Harry on when they fought against Dumbledore and the rest of the fools who chose to follow him. His eyes followed Harry as he mercilessly slashed away at the tendrils of his own dark past, opening a path for himself, blazing a trail through his insecurities and anxieties, the physical and mental torture that had plagued him for years.

Tom’s eyes widened when he saw Harry leave his former childhood home for the last time, its ruins smoldering with fire.

Harry made to lift his hood up, but gentle hands stopped him, and their lips met midway. Harry breathed the air of death into Tom’s lungs, making him almost weak at the knees. Almost.

Neither of them was weak anymore.

They parted, and green eyes sought out red.

For red was no longer a frightening color. 


End file.
